


afterwards

by yhighon



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Past Suicide Attempt, Post-Canon, Post-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Saihara Shuichi-centric, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, kind of a vent but there's not enough post canon v3 stuff so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:53:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26725471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yhighon/pseuds/yhighon
Summary: after the killing game, life goes on. the outside world is still there, they somehow survive. life goes on, but they feel stuck, stuck in a world that watched them as they killed each other.(shuichi lies on the floor and thinks about everything that led him there)
Relationships: Harukawa Maki & Saihara Shuichi, Harukawa Maki & Saihara Shuichi & Yumeno Himiko
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	afterwards

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to my friend, just_a_lizard, who helped edit this :)

the bathroom floor is nice, shuichi decides. the window behind him is slightly open, and he’s attempting to blow most of the smoke out of it, but he isn’t doing a very good job.

maki will kill him later, but he doesn’t really care. he thinks he’s allowed to smoke in the bathroom, after a bad panic attack left him curled up on the bathroom floor for the past three hours. 

all of his limbs are stiff, but he has no intention of moving in order to relieve the discomfort. himiko and maki are out doing… something, shuichi isn’t sure what. doesn’t particularly care at this moment, if he’s being honest with himself.

the cigarette smoke in the bathroom makes shuichi cough, but he lights another, regardless, determined to self-destruct. normally he would just go find whatever sharp object he’s managed to hide, but that requires getting up from the bathroom floor, and he has no intention of doing that in the near future.

it also leaves more evidence, and shuichi hopes he can get rid of the smell before maki and himiko get back. then he can pretend it never happened, and go back to being fine.

life after the game hasn’t been easy. after defeating tsumugi and breaking out of the dome, they’d been received by team danganronpa, and been forced to stay in the hospital for a while, forced to go to the funerals of their dead friends for the public to cry over. 

strangers gave condolences, told them they were sorry for their loss. some were bold enough to congratulate them on their win, tell them that they had been fans of the show.

whenever that happened, it felt like a slap in the face. they watched as they all killed each other, as shuichi condemned his classmates to a death sentence. watched through all the pain, all the grief that had run rampant during the game.

and yeah, they’d signed up for it, but they were dumb kids. dumb kids who had no idea what they were getting into, what it actually was like. 

shuichi takes a deeper drag on the cigarette, coughing as he blows out. the smoke curls above him, barely any of it going towards the window. 

if maki wants to kill him, shuichi thinks that he would let her. she would probably be doing him a favor.

they used to be in therapy, right after the end of the season. they’d stopped, as soon as they were allowed to. himiko is the only one who still goes, to someone they’d found on the internet in an attempt to rid themselves of team danganronpa.

both shuichi and maki had been too closed off for therapy to actually help, too numb to get to anything past the surface.

he would just sit on the uncomfortable couch and stare at the wall or down at his hands, trying to pretend like he was anywhere else. it was the only time since the beginning of the game that he wished he could have his old hat back.

the therapists they were subjected to were too clinical, too used to seeing this happen so many times before. when they got to leave, it was the closest thing to happiness he’d felt since the game started.

going out in public is still a little bit of a struggle, their season of danganronpa being the newest, and unfortunately, currently the most popular. they take turns going to the store, trying their best to cover their faces and hope that they aren’t recognized.

the three of them still live in tokyo, and while it makes them more susceptible to being recognized out on the street, shuichi can’t imagine living out in the country, in a small town where people know everything about everyone. he prefers the anonymity in a crowd, the way that the neighbours never come knocking.

himiko had mentioned wanting to live out in the country, once, but with the way that maki reacted, shuichi suspects she has the same feelings about it as he does. himiko never brought it up again, after that.

his foot is falling asleep. he moves it out from under his other foot, moving it around in a circle to get the blood flowing again. it feels like white noise, like tv static.

they hadn’t regained their memories, after the game. shuichi is resentful of it, but grateful all the same. the boy he’d seen on the tape during the final trial is so foreign to him, even though he knows that he’s the artificial personality. 

distantly, he hears the door open. two pairs of footsteps walk inside the apartment, calling his name. he doesn’t respond. someone heads towards the bathroom.

maki opens the door, holding her breath. she’d never really recovered from the day when they’d found shuichi on the floor, not breathing, with an empty bottle of himiko’s anxiety pills in his right hand.

_a body has been discovered!_

she stares down at him, very much alive, and shuichi blinks back at her, surprised to find mostly concern and annoyance, rather than the anger he expected.

“what are you doing?” maki stands over him, hands reaching to fidget with hair that isn’t there anymore.

she’d chopped her hair off sometime when they were in the hospital, during an episode of late night mania. she’d come to shuichi and himiko afterwards to fix it, and they’d done their best. it’s slowly growing out, but it’s still uneven, chopped at odd angles.

in lieu of an actual response, he blows out more smoke. maki glares at him.

“coping.” he says dramatically. he can hear himiko moving around in the kitchen, probably trying to make dinner. shuichi faintly realizes he has no idea what day it is. what time is it? how long has he been lying on the bathroom floor? a while, if his stiff body is anything to go by.

maki eyes him suspiciously. “are you okay?” she asks, sitting down on the bathroom floor across from him.

“i don’t know.” he answers honestly. it’s the first time he’s been honest about his emotions since he used to have late night conversations with kaito, which feel so far away. thinking about kaito makes his chest ache.

“give me that.” she takes away his cigarette, putting it out in the ashtray that sits on the edge of the sink. shuichi mourns it’s loss, a way to avoid answering maki’s questions.

“himiko is making pasta for dinner.” she offers, pulling her knees in close to her chest, leaning against the wall below the window.

shuichi hums, not really having anything to say in response. she sighs, lets one of her legs splay out in front of her, careful not to kick him. 

he finally looks at her. slightly smeared eye makeup, her favorite red sweater. she’s wearing planet socks, he realizes. it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it should.

there are always little things that shuichi notices, now. it’s a lingering effect of being the ultimate detective, having to notice everything in order to ensure their survival. shuichi hates it.

“where did you guys go?” shuichi asks, tearing his eyes away from her socks.

“himiko wanted me to go to therapy with her.” maki replies, and shuichi suddenly feels every bit of the cold floor that’s touching him.

“oh.” he croaks out, and maki must sense the change, because she hastily adds on to her sentence.

“not that I really want to go back to therapy, but it might be good.” maki has never been good with words, whether in the killing game or out, and it really shows in times like this.

“it’s okay if you want to go back to therapy, maki.” he says. “himiko seems to like it.” 

saying himiko likes it is a stretch, but it seems to help her, at least. seems to keep her from drowning in guilt, like she did when they first got out of the game.

himiko is the only one who’s really coping with what happened. shuichi and maki have their own unhealthy coping mechanisms, but himiko is slowly doing better. he can’t pretend even to himself that therapy doesn’t work.

“i don’t want to go back.” maki says, interrupting his train of thought. 

shuichi doesn’t either. he can’t stand when other people watch him, gauge his reactions and his emotions, to clinically write down in a notebook with a ballpoint pen. 

it wasn’t that they couldn’t afford it. they’d gotten paid generously for their appearances in the 53rd season of danganronpa, and the only one of them that’s working is shuichi, who’s gotten into the habit of taking minor jobs in need of a private investigator. it was what he was good at (and he couldn’t bring himself to just sit in the apartment all day).

himiko had offered to get a job, and had successfully applied to be a barista at starbucks, but once the interviewer mentioned her prior television role, she’d bolted. they didn’t blame her.

maki hadn’t offered, and himiko and shuichi knew better than to ask. they didn’t need the money, and it wasn’t worth the flashbacks and panic attacks that interacting with the public would bring. 

so mostly, they hid out in their shared apartment, with shuichi leaving at odd hours to find whatever cheating spouse or embezzling ceo he was hired to investigate.

he’s been quiet for too long. he can tell, from the way maki is looking at him, with an expression of thinly-veiled concern and slight annoyance that he hasn’t replied to her earlier statement.

thankfully, he’s saved by himiko, calling from the kitchen.

“shuichi! maki! dinner’s ready!” she calls out, and as if on cue, shuichi realizes that he’s hungry. normally he’s fine to survive on cigarettes and caffeine, but he’s suddenly really hungry, and the pasta that himiko has made smells good.

maki gets up first, extending her hand to shuichi. he takes it, and is pulled upwards, on slightly unstable feet from lying on the floor for so long. 

“it smells like cigarettes in here.” maki says, reaching over to turn on the fan. 

“sorry.” shuichi says. he isn’t. 

maki has nothing to say to his insincere apology, instead just opening the window so that it’s fully open. she closes the door as they walk out of the bathroom, and they move towards the kitchen in silence.

himiko is already sitting at the table, waiting for them. their bowls are set out in their respective chairs, and they sit down, avoiding each other’s eyes.

they don’t talk, during dinner. shuichi can feel himiko’s eyes on him, can feel her concerned glances as he stares blankly at the mostly empty kitchen table. himiko had added a centerpiece, something ugly she’d probably found in the goodwill near their apartment.

but himiko doesn’t say anything. dinner is finished in silence, the only sounds coming from forks scraping against bowls. after dinner, shuichi silently volunteers himself to clean up, and maki helps. after, they sit on the couch, turning on a movie that only himiko is really paying attention to.

but she’s laying across the both of them, fully invested, and shuichi tries to relax and pay attention, instead of thinking about everything else that led them to this moment. tries to not notice the glances maki’s throwing at him every so often.

instead, he just watches the movie.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah. this was a vent that i got a little carried away with. there's not enough post-canon v3 fics so i'm glad i can add to it, because post-canon stuff slaps. anyway. have a good day everybody. remember to eat, and drink some water.


End file.
